Building a Dollhouse: Adding Shingles

Adding dollhouse shingles can be difficult and a rather slow process.  Before even beginning you must read the dollhouse manual instructions, thoroughly.  Though it looks like you have a lot of shingles to work with – if you start to make mistakes with your angles and cuts you may not have enough wooden shingles to finish your dollhouse.  Plan ahead, read instructions, and make yourself a template to cut the shingle angles correctly.  I used a sharp small handsaw to cut the shingles.   I highly recommend using a scrap handsaw and making yourself a template.

I used a piece of scrap wood (for my template) and pre-cut the scrap wood to the angle that I would need for the valley of the dollhouse roof.

Using my handsaw I cut the shingle angles.

Next, using a thick solvent-based glue I began to place my starter row of shingles.

I continued adding each row of shingles staggering the seams.  To get the shingles to stay I had to use a lot of Liquid Nails.  As you can see from the picture there is a lot of excess glue showing.

Once all the glue was dry and the shingles were installed I covered the Liquid Glue remnants with acrylic paint.  As you can see from the picture below none of the excess glue is showing.

The shingles for the roof were quite a process and it took several days but I am very happy with the results of my patience and hard work.

To read all of my posts chronicling my adventures of building the Victorian Farmhouse Dollhouse, for my grand-daughter, click here.